There was hardly anything left of the house, just some lines of brick and rubble in a clearing, a pit and a broken slab of slate with runnels in it that had been a draining board. It showed up better in winter when the undergrowth died back, when you might find bits of rubbish, old bottles and things, about the place. Once he had found a clay pipe. Would that be interesting to her? What should he say? What were they doing here together, pretending? It was early in the morning and they were hidden away in this little wood with only the birds and the dog to see them, and the dog had disappeared off into the undergrowth. He might say what he liked, just for this moment. As if they were only playing, only themselves to see or hear, out so early while the rest of the world slept. He didn’t dare touch her. Not yet. He talked instead. That made the moment longer. He told her how he used to come with Billy, when Billy put feed out for the pheasants. Billy liked to give the pheasants a little bit of grain, to draw them over from the shooting estates, from Jackson’s where the syndicate got young pheasants in every year for the sport. Pity Billy wasn’t around any more. She would never have known anyone like Billy. He told her about Billy, how Billy would talk. He mimicked old Billy. He used to be good at mimicking Billy, when they were boys. Now he did it again, shrinking and hunching over like Billy, pulling at the imaginary cap on his head, making her smile. She was standing where the sunlight fell on her between the trees, smiling. Her house was just here, boy, see. Old lady like a witch, we was scared of her, us youngsters. I remember coming to this door here, just here it was, and the garden, you can see where she had her garden, the pear tree there, and the well. Privy that way. Weren’t no bathroom o’ course. And when old Hannah died the house was let be. Falling apart good enough as it was. No point going and modernising an old house like that, was there, boy, out in the fields with no electric or water?

Now she was laughing. Moving between the light and the shadow. He thought of Billy taking a moment’s rest on the broken brick wall after walking out here with the bag of grain for the pheasants, his whiskery face and watery eyes. Billy in his father’s old coat. He told her how she would have liked to have met him.

Richard talked more than she had ever heard him talk before. He made her laugh. She had not seen him like that, so light-hearted, before.

More solemnly he told her how they had buried Billy’s dog. Rosie, her name was. Over there, he said. I made a cross. It’s probably still there if we look.